


Sticking to the Plan

by pocky_slash



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-22
Updated: 2005-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was never supposed to like Joanne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sticking to the Plan

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ladybug218

She wasn't supposed to like Joanne. There was a plan - a sly, conniving, infallible plan - and she ruined it the moment she realized that she actually liked Joanne.

It had been a great plan. Maureen put a lot of time and effort into concocting the whole thing, working over the details so it was perfect and flawless, so it fixed everything at once. She spent whole afternoons in coffee shops with a yellow legal pad. _If I make sure to do this and say this it will also take care of this..._ She dedicated more time to this plan than she did to anything else she had ever undertaken, any performance, any audition, anything.

But none of that mattered, really, because in the end, she liked Joanne too much to go through with it.

Joanne was not the type of person that Maureen generally would have liked. She was beautiful, yes, but she was strong willed, opinionated. She had fallen for Maureen - oh, there was no mistaking that - but she had no problem demanding more, arguing. She was a lawyer, after all. Normally, Maureen wouldn't have even bothered. She liked things to be easy, she liked to push people around and have them listen to her, cater to her every whim without so much as a frown. Joanne wasn't like that, not at all, and Maureen found that interesting when she wasn't too busy finding it irritating.

She met Joanne at a club that she slipped out to one night when Mark and Roger were having a particularly vicious argument. Mark Cohen would drop anything for her any day of the week, as long as Roger Davis wasn't looking. Maureen had just about reached her limit with Mark - he was annoying to begin with, no matter how much he worshiped her, but now that he was alone with Roger, taking care of Roger, looking out for Roger... well, now he was just downright irritating.

That particular night, she slipped out of the loft that she was still sharing with the boys and headed out to a string of clubs, each darker and louder than the next. Joanne was in the fourth club, sitting at the bar, nursing a drink, and looking strangely out of place. There were two other women with her and they looked even more awkward in a crushing crowd of sweaty bodies and throbbing music. Maureen wasn't sure if it was sympathy or pity that caused her to flash Joanne the first smile, but an hour later they were standing in a corner by themselves and Maureen was just drunk enough to encourage Joanne's advances.

She spent quite a few hours drinking bad diner coffee the next morning, wondering what, exactly, was going on. She hadn't had sex with Joanne, which surprised even her, but she had asked for her number. Initially, the plan had been to leave the paper out in plain sight, hoping that Mark would see it and assume that Maureen was cheating on him once again, with a woman this time. The plan had been to force Mark to break up with her, first with the phone number and then by making up stories about her exploits with Joanne.

She hadn't actually planned on using the number, on calling the woman, until she realized that she was thinking small, too small. This could be huge. This could solve all her problems. All she had to do was plan it out.

A week later, she had it.

She told Mark that there was a woman named Joanne she met at a club. That Joanne was a lesbian and entranced with her, that Joanne liked the ideas she had for her performance, that Joanne's family was rich. If she pretended she was interested in Joanne, if she pretended she was a lesbian too, if she led Joanne on for long enough, maybe she could get this unsuspecting woman to pay for her next protest. Maybe she could get her to pay for some new equipment. Maybe this could all work out in their favor.

A week later, she broke the news to Mark. She liked playing a lesbian a little too much. She had a revelation. She was so sorry, and she really did love him, but her world was suddenly turned on end and she just wasn't sexually attracted to him anymore.

That was all in line with the plan. That was all fine. But when she actually _was_ attracted to Joanne, when she found herself falling for soft curves and small waists, when men just didn't do it for her anymore....

She was supposed to use Joanne for the money, for the nice apartment, new equipment, fancy lunches. She was supposed to break up with Joanne after the New Year, go back to her old, philandering ways, and let Mark believe that she was off sleeping with women. This was supposed to be a way for her to get rid of Mark once and for all, to stop him from hanging all over her. This was supposed to be a chance to leave it all behind, give a killer performance and make it big. This was supposed to be the start of something new.

Well, that part held true, at least.

It all came down to the fact that she was never supposed to like Joanne. But she did. She liked the passion, the arguing, the opinions. She liked the soft curves and the small waist, she liked seeing Joanne awkwardly sip drinks at clubs that weren't her style. She liked Joanne.

She liked Joanne, and after that, the problem changed. Because as much as she liked Joanne, her eyes still liked to wander, and now... well, for the first time in her life, her relationship actually mattered, and Joanne wasn't the type to forgive and forget.

As Maureen watched the pretty blonde slink off the to the back room, as she followed her hips, her lips, as she locked the door behind them, as she pushed the guilt inside and let her lips trace the other woman's ear, she silently cursed herself and wished she had just stuck to the goddamn plan.

 


End file.
